Today's story on bankrate.com, "A night out on the cheap," talks about a book on frugality, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with Peasant's Pocketbook (apparently to be retitled as Frugal Fun(. The author is Shel Horowitz. The tips on having fun without spending alot of money are familiar from my college days -- bird prices at restaurants, eating ethnic, going to bargain matinees, seeing local shows with local artists. Some other suggestions are fine for college students with lots of time on their hands -- call in to radio stations for free tickets, write art and music reviews for local newspapers for extra money -- but are a little unrealistic for grownups. Afterall, time is money, and if you have time to write reviews for a few bucks a piece, you can probably get a second job that pays real money. Not to be a curmudgeon -- if you enjoy doing it anyway and would do it for free, then by all means, you should do it.
A friend gave me this tip about buying clothes -- go to the Good Will store (or I suppose any thrift store) that is supplied by affluent neighborhoods. She finds designer clothing for herself and her kids this way, and no one would ever know except that she's so amused and proud of herself for being frugal that she tells everyone.
Is there a fine line between being frugal and being cheap? Are these two sides of the same coin? I don't think they are. I've met people who are frugal but not cheap, and people who are cheap but not frugal. In law school, I knew this girl who had an absolute rule about never going to the ATM. She took out $40 or so at the beginning of the week and that was the maximum she would spend no matter what. At first, I admired her self-discipline, but then I saw the character flaw behind it. When we went out as a group for pizza, and she was down to her last 2 dollars, did she decline to go? Nope. She went out with us, and when the check came and each person's share was 5 bucks, she offered up her 2 bucks, all in pennies and nickels and dimes. The rest of us made up the difference. Was she both frugal and cheap, or was she just cheap through and through, both with herself and with others?
On the other hand, I knew this other guy who was saving up for law school, and he rarely bought more than a hot dog at the corner vendor for lunch. But when he went out with a group, he paid more than his fair share. He's successful now and doesn't usually eat hot dogs, but he's still the same about money as he always was. He'll buy a used furnace from a neighbor rather than get a new one, but he doesn't pay for his frugality with other people's money. He's one of the nicest guys I know on this planet.
What gets me are those people who are cheap in the name of frugality. A cheap person will blithly ignore the fact that a ten-dollar meal, after tax and tip, is more than ten dollars, that as a result of his tight-fistedness, his companion has paid twice what he's paid for the same meal. In the end, this personality flaw is not about the money. It's a sign of a deeper lack of character-- what's really missing underneath is honesty and generosity of spirit.
Don't get me wrong, I really admire frugal people and I aspire to be one of them. They're the ones with all the good tips on travel discounts, the ones who aren't afraid to buy used things. They'll never lead me and my wallet astray because they're just as watchful of other people's money as they are of their own. Truly frugal people are generous.